BF - CTA Q2 Sync
Date: March 20, 2026 Source: Granola Meeting ID: 17733754-91fe-4705-9aff-c128af06fa84 URL: https://notes.granola.ai/t/17733754-91fe-4705-9aff-c128af06fa84
Participants:
- Uttam Kumaran (note creator) from Brainforge uttam@brainforge.ai
- Katherine Bayless kbayless@cta.tech
Team Expansion & New Hires
- CES Platforms team adding two roles
- Product owner (will recruit integrations engineer)
- Integrations engineer (possibly repurposing one of Jay’s developers)
- Data engineer accepted offer
- Start date: April 6 (unlikely) or April 20 (more likely)
- Relocating from Raleigh
- Jay’s additional hires
- Business analyst already hired
- Director of IT candidate interviewed (strong background from 70 Applebee’s locations)
- Market research support
- Chris formalized at 30% time with team starting April 1st
- Background: market research firm, good fit for enrichment pipeline work
Q2 Technical Priorities
- Data ops ID infrastructure
- Leverage vendor-built identity stitching across CES systems
- OKTA integration for ID persistence across platforms
- On-site CES registration bypass (solve by January)
- AWS ProServe engagement
- Tool consolidation through marketplace contracts
- SSO improvements and Okta cleanup
- Integration framework development
- Lambda/serverless approach for small integrations
- API governance and naming conventions
- Pre-credentialing workflow: Formstack → data lake → Merits webhooks
Key Integrations Pipeline
- Innovation Awards (Open Water platform)
- Opens July 1st
- First production test of identity stitching
- Member/exhibitor discount automation via API
- Priority Q2 integrations
- Cvent (smaller CES events)
- Zoom (webinar attendance data)
- Marketing Cloud enhancements
- Analytics extraction improvements
- Ad hoc process formalization
- Potential Fivetran connector for end-user self-service
Dashboard & Reporting Strategy
- Streamlit dashboard design focus
- Move away from Power BI dependency
- 2-3 core dashboards with team feedback loops
- Kai to lead discovery and design work
- Supporting ecosystem development
- Data catalog and dictionary
- SOPs and training materials
- Documentation sustainability (avoid Word docs)
CES Season Planning
- Registration opens end of August
- Testing phase needed by end of July
- Focus on integrations and automation framework before season starts
- Post-season opportunities
- Process non-P0/P1 data sources during quieter period
- Leverage downtime for data crunching projects
Finance Integration Considerations
- Profix budgeting platform upgrade potential
- ERP transition: Great Plains → Sage Intact (June 1st target)
- Additional cubes capability with decent analytics
- Fragmented finance data challenges
- Manual processes across Ironclad, Concur, other systems
- Bank reconciliation inefficiencies
- Higher accuracy requirements vs. analytics work